Cinema Suicide

It was easy to miss but one of the best movies I saw in 2005 was the amateur, silent short production, The Call of Cthulhu, by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Directors have been trying forever to faithfully adapt Lovecraft to the silver screen, but it never works out. Stuart Gordon has come close on many occasions, but there’s an intangible something about Lovecraft’s vision of horror that never translates to the visual medium. Maybe it’s trying to put a face to faceless, ancient horrors that ruins it. A monster movie that never shows the monster doesn’t really work. You need a pay off or you’re going to lose the audience. The HPLHS is the rarest of creatures that not only pulled it off, but also put their own unique spin on the Lovecraft adaptation by stylistically pointing to Lovecraft’s own era and producing a silent film. It looks absolutely authentic, features some outstanding stop-motion and visual trickery to properly visualize “non-euclidian geometry”. I cannot stress this enough. If you’re a Lovecraft fan and want to see how someone makes a Lovecraft film proper, look no further than HPLHS Call of Cthulhu movie, which you can order from their website.

Dread Central reported the story about an hour ago that the Historical Society is gearing up to release their next picture, based on The Whisperer In The Darkness. The teaser trailer is on their site now and this time around, they’ve made a talkie, which is fantastic! The look of the trailer is fantastic, too. Whoever is shooting these movies has serious photography skills with the moody lighting and whatnot. This looks like straight 1945 MGM productions and I, personally, can’t wait. Shoot over to the teaser site and check it out!